


The Only Thing Worse Than the Symptom is the Cure

by NervousAsexual



Category: Half-Life
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Future Tense, Present Tense, Reunions, the Barney hivemind, why do i do the things i do
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-15
Updated: 2020-11-15
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:20:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,966
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27575093
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NervousAsexual/pseuds/NervousAsexual
Summary: While out on a CP job Barney runs into a familiar face.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 60





	The Only Thing Worse Than the Symptom is the Cure

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [The Barney Hivemind](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27013669) by [synths](https://archiveofourown.org/users/synths/pseuds/synths). 



The Combine supplies will eat you from the inside out. All the food, all the healing liquid, everything is laced with drugs. About the only thing that isn't is the headcrab antidote, and it turns out Barney's allergic to that.

This he found out the hard way. He was on patrol in one of the abandoned buildings and one of the damn headhumpers got him right in the back, tearing right through the neckpiece of his armor. He turned and slammed back-first into the nearest wall, and when the thing let go of him he emptied his OSIPR into it before kicking it down the hallway with a form that would have made his high school soccer coach proud. This wasn't the first time he'd gotten bit so he was prepared for the aches and pains and fatigue the venomous ones gave you. What he wasn't prepared for was the needle that stabbed into his shoulder just about to the bone, and he definitely wasn't prepared for the shortness of breath or the hour he spent in a bombed-out grocery store alternately retching his guts out and digging through antihistamines that were twenty years out of date.

That was an experience he isn't keen to relive so from then on he's always ripped the tube of headcrab antidote out of whatever armor he's wearing and gives it to Kleiner. It's a godsend for the resistance, Eli's told him, but that doesn't make headcrab bites any more pleasant. So when the headcrab gets him outside Ravenholm, cut off from the others in his group, he knows how it's going to end.

He stomps that thing to death because the hallway he's in is so narrow he doesn't trust himself to bring the gun up and because his heart's already pounding like a jackhammer, pumping headcrab venom through his entire body, so why not? He stomps and stomps and when the headcrab finally stops twitching he sinks down against the wall and puts his head in his hands.

He can hear the rattle of gunfire outside but he can't tell if the pulse weapons outnumber the resistance weapons or the other way around. He can't decide if he should leave the helmet on--in case the rest of his CP group come back for him--or take it off--prove he's human under all this in case it's the resistance that finds him first.

CP isn't gonna come back for him.

Part of this he knows is the venom. He's exhausted and sore--was to start with, and it's worse now--and that makes it easier to believe the catastrophizing in his head. But part of him knows there's some truth to it. CP doesn't care if he lives or dies. He's one tiny part in the grand machine, and he's a part that's easily replaced.

It's a familiar thought. He closes his eyes and leans back against the wall. He doesn't want to think about Black Mesa.

It's hard not to. He was almost happy there. He had friends there. A handful of them are still alive. Most are dead. And then there's the ones like Gordon, ones he knows in his head are no longer living; he saw the grunts dragging Gordon away himself, but if he hasn't seen the body, or spoken to someone who has it's so easy to convince himself that there's a chance they got out.

Keeping himself vertical is getting harder all the time. He slides down to lay on the dirt-caked floor and closes his eyes. If he dies, he dies. If he dies...

When running footsteps get close and he sees the glowing parts of the OSIPR, though, he's a little more proactive.

"Easy," he says, raising both hands. "I'm not armed. I'm..." He sees the white mask in the glow of the gun and is glad he didn't take off his own. "Stand down."

The other metrocop keeps the gun trained on his head. "Number," he says. His mind is moving so slow he has to stop and think before he can recite his CP number. "Why are you here?"

"Headcrab got me. Waiting it out. Allergic to the..."

Abruptly the other cop makes like he's going to fire. "Take off the mask."

His blood turns to ice in his veins. "What?"

"Mask off. Do it."

All he can think is that somehow this guy knows who he is, knows he's with the resistance. As soon as he takes off the mask he'll splatter his brains all over this hall. "We're on duty. I can't..."

"Take it off. Now." And suddenly the gun is jabbing his chest directly above his heart.

He isn't sure if it's the venom or the fear but it feels like he's moving his hands through molasses. He puts his fingers to the latches at the sides of the mask. At least, he thinks, the last thing he'll do before death will be shedding that awful CP cover.

He opens the latches and the faceplate comes away in his hands.

The gun hovers at his chest for a moment before drawing away. The other cop lets it hang loose in one hand, just brushing the ground. He leans in close--if he didn't feel so damn weak he could yank on the guy's armor, overbalance him, get a few seconds headstart on running. But all he can do right now is lay there and listen to his heart racing in his chest.

The other cop says nothing. He looks Barney over carefully, and then, with a moment's hesitation, he removes his own faceplate. Barney looks at him and sees himself.

No. No, that's not possible.

The other cop watches him watching him. He opens his mouth as if to speak, closes it, and finally asks, "Calhoun?"

It's not possible but it's happening. "Beier?"

For a moment they eye each other, and then in the same instant they both laugh 'til they cry in relief and fear and amazement.

"I thought I was the only one left." Beier crouches down to help him sit up.

"I thought I was the only one left!" Calhoun is almost giddy. "I thought you all died at Black Mesa!"

At Black Mesa, where he was separate and whole, where each iteration of Barney--Calhoun, Beier, O'Connor, Jones, the hundreds of others, almost identical to each other--joined the others at night. He missed it so much during the first few days of his 'freedom'. Every night he would curl up in the freezing desert sand and imagine he was back in the barracks with the rest of the hive mind, listening to them breathe and move around and do all the things that needed doing between each individual body's shifts. That's the one thing he likes about CP--at night he can pretend he's somewhere else and that the people breathing around him aren't other people at all.

"When you all stopped responding I thought I was dead." Beier runs a hand through thick dark hair exactly like Calhoun's in color and texture. "I didn't know what happened but I was so sure the others must have died."

He'd felt exactly the same. He'd been in the train yard when it happened, trying to free Rosenberg and the other scientists. As he'd been fighting with the locks on the train cars and Beier was running with Gordon through army fire Barney felt this massive jolt and suddenly it was like every other body went silent. It brought him to his knees. He hadn't quite understood, but he had known one thing: he was alone. For the first time ever he was really, truly alone.

On instinct he tries to reach into their shared memory. He hopes that he will find a memory of Gordon after the army grunts got him, that there will be some reasonable evidence that he survived. But there's nothing. Where the threads of his mind held them together before there is now nothing at all.

"Did you see Gordon?" he asks, and at the same time Beier asks, "Did you go back for Chumley?"

Chumley--he'd almost forgotten about the chumtoad he'd kept in the barracks as a sort of mascot/pet/morale booster. "No. Last I saw Jones had him in the... the silo, I think. Do you suppose he made it out?"

If he did he didn't make it far. Calhoun saw his body floating in the silo reservoir not long after the rest of him went dark.

"Headcrab got ya, you said?" Beier asked. "How long ago?"

"Not sure. Five minutes at least. You allergic too?"

"Never met anybody else who was before. Technically, I guess I still haven't."

He's so tired. "It's been hell without the rest of me."

"Same here." Beier sits down beside him. "Always wondered if I'd make it on my own."

It's so bizarre, seeing him like this after so long. "Remember that thing we used to do?"

"Yeah." Even without the hivemind between them they both remember.

"I sorta missed that."

"Well, we'll have time. After we get through this. Now that we know where to look and all."

And so they will. In six hours they'll lay curled up beside one another and it will feel just like it used to, warm and safe, listening to the other one breathe, and Calhoun will think that he's never going back to sleeping alone.

"You ever talk to Eli?" he'll ask.

And Beier, half-asleep, will say, "Eli who?"

"Vance. From Black Mesa."

Beier will chuckle and say, "Of course not."

And Calhoun will be so excited because now he gets to bear good news for a change, and he'll start to tell him that Eli's alright, and so is his daughter and Kleiner and...

"He's on the anticitizen list."

Despite the heat of the two of them curled together Calhoun will feel a chill.

"If I knew where he was I'd have to turn him in. You know he's working with the insurrectionists? I don't know what he thinks he's doing but he's going to get all of us killed."

He'll think--he'll hope--that he's just kidding around.

And Beier will say, "We would all be dead if it weren't for Breen."

"Maybe," Calhoun will say, as if this is all speculative, as if he doesn't know exactly how Eli feels, "he thinks it's not worth what the Combine does to people."

"It doesn't matter what he thinks. Doesn't matter what I think. We've already fought this war, remember? We lost. All he's doing is putting more lives at risk." And here Beier will sigh before nestling deeper under the standard issue blankets they share. "I'm sorry. It just scares the hell out of me, you know?"

"I know "

"Heh, of course you do. We're the same person." He'll yawn. "D'you think we can be again? Like if we're near each other long enough we can go back to the way things used to be?"

And Calhoun will say, "Anything is possible." But he'll know. Whatever it was that happened to separate them at Black Mesa, whatever has happened since, it's made them grow in different directions. They can't keep being the same person because they are not the same person anymore.

Part of him will think that he should make his excuses and leave. Not only is Beier not a rebel, he'll turn in anyone he thinks is one. The two of them will not be safe together.

But he'll also think--and this may be the headcrab venom talking or the exhaustion or the fear--it can't hurt tonight. Just one night of pretending he's still himself. In the morning he will...

He won't know what he'll do. But that hasn't stopped him yet.


End file.
